Main menu

How dealers can ruin the Subaru BRZ

May 8, 2012

For $25,000, there are a lot of 20-year-olds (and 18-to-35-year-olds, too, no doubt) visualizing themselves in this Subaru. Photo by Autoweek

There are a few cars that come into our fleet that truly excite me--the all-new ones, for sure, and the ones with the biggest engines and greatest performance. And I'm not without wanting to sit behind the wheel of a flashy rig, too, to get longing, lustful looks cast my way. It's positive reinforcement and ego stroking. My bubble will burst behind the wheel of that next minivan.

When the Subaru BRZ showed up in our office, I put my name on the list to drive it. Whoa! Talk about a long list: Folks had raised their proverbial hands to get in the driver seat well before me. That bodes well for the small, stylish two-door coupe. The anticipation for what it could do--and the want of others to drive it--didn't stop even when the keys were in my pocket. A half-hour before I wanted to go on my own test drive, I was relieved of the keys with a promise that the car would come back unharmed. It did.

I was interested in this car for a couple of reasons. The recipe of a lightweight, small and bare-bones coupe intrigues me most. Not since the Mazda Miata has there been something like this, and the market hungers for it.

Personally, I think its design is better than the sister car from Toyota, the Scion FR-S.

In our fleet we have the automatic-transmission car that looks like a manual that drives like an automatic. If you make sure to use the steering-wheel-mounted paddles with vigor and a keen ear toward its shift points (and put it in its sporty mode), you can pretend to be a racer. Even this auto has something inherent that has been lost in a lot of cars these days--personality. Rev the wheee out of it, and you will enjoy yourself.

I must confess that the engine sounds almost like the noise that a young boy makes mimicking an engine, perhaps a step or two up from the playing-card-in-the-bicycle-spoke noise of our youth. But all of it's OK. The BRZ is happy to sit in the driveway and enjoy the looks it gets. One of my 20-year-old sons pored over it, a grin on his face. He pronounced: I could look good in this car.

For $25,000, there are a lot of 20-year-olds (and 18-to-35-year-olds, too, no doubt) visualizing themselves in this Subaru. That says a lot for the brand that has not been that successful in engaging an entry demographic with a car that's attainable.

That brings up another point. If the nation's Subaru dealers, all independent business folk, take to piling an additional dealer markup on the BRZ because of its sure-to-be popularity, it will sound the death knell for the car. The dealers must take the long-term view and see the BRZ as a way to get this fickle generation sold on their brand for the long haul. To make the quick buck on a one-and-done deal will do nothing for the brand's continued growth and nothing for the dealer's heirs.

Let me go out on a limb here and say that Subaru finally has a hot product--a hot, entry-level product that also casts a great halo on the brand. Sell it for an excessive quick buck, and down the road the brand will be out of luck.

Dutch Mandel
- Dutch Mandel, Autoweek’s editorial director and associate publisher, has been with the company for 29 years. A second-generation car journo, he grew up with exotic cars in the garage. Among his many feats is a chef for a racing team and automotive consultant on the Pixar movie CARS and CARS 2.
See more by this author»